


Hair

by clayrlibrarian, Zje



Series: Your hair was long when we first met [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cancer, Gen, Harry Potter References, Hurt/Comfort, hair shaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clayrlibrarian/pseuds/clayrlibrarian, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zje/pseuds/Zje
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cancer got Enjolras in its claws. Enjolras isn't willing to give up, but even though he never cared much about how he looks, he just can't bring himself to shave his hair to beat chemo therapy to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hair

**Author's Note:**

> This was done for Tumblr-user combeferrewolf who prompted the following: "e/R where Enjolras gets (some form of) cancer and his hair starts falling out due to chemotherapy and okay this is The Hair you guys The Enjolras Hair and even though Enjolras says something like hair shouldn’t matter so much, it really does because it’s something you can SEE and notice outwardly changed with him and it’s so hard but Grantaire tries as hard as he can to be strong about it and he even shaves Enjolras’s head for him and Enjolras acts very tough and optimistic about it even though they’re both scared..."  
> The first half was written by me, the second half (Musain scene) by Adri (clayrlibrarian).

"I can’t do it, R."

Enjolras knuckles are turned white as he tries to hold onto the bathtub’s rim.

"I can’t even look in the mirror, it’s pathetic" he breathes deeply, barely letting the words out, ashamed of how much importance his subconscious seems to put on something so irrelevant as hair.

Grantaire, standing in the door feeling lost, slowly spins the cup of tea he just got for Enjolras from the kitchen, and tries to think of something to say to ease the tension he can feel almost radiating off his friend. Why is he here again? Why not Courfeyrac or Combeferre, who are much closer to Enjolras and wouldn’t feel weird even hugging him? Well, he can imagine Courfeyrac. “Dude, you have cancer” he’d blurt out, “you’re going to lose your hair probably anyway and look like a rabbit that fell into a box full of scissors.” Not very helpful. 

"Umm-" Grantaire says when the silence got long and uncomfortable with Enjolras still hanging over the bathtub, eyes closed, pained expression on his face. He puts the tea down in front of the mirror (catches a glimpse of his own face, and the hair pointing in all directions, uncomfortably over-aware of how he can keep his hair, he’s not sick, he’s not getting treatment, and how is that even fair) and goes over to sit on the cold ridge next to Enjolras. 

"You know…" he starts quietly, not even knowing where this is going "maybe… maybe you should think of it as a- sacrifice. Sacrificing your hair - I mean, it’s beautiful, I would miss it too, but even more I’d miss you-" the words are just spilling out of him, oh god, if he doesn’t want this to end awkwardly he just has to keep going - "sacrificing your hair to show this disease that you are stronger than that. You won’t passively just wait until it falls out, you’re taking charge. …and it’s not even about the hair, is it" he suddenly realizes. "You think cutting it off means giving in. Giving in to the reality off — this" Enjolras finally looks up, wide blue eyes looking directly into Grantaire’s, who still cannot bring himself to say the word "cancer". They just look at another, for moments that seem to stretch, and it’s like they can see the other clearly, unmasked, maybe for the first time. 

"You’re not giving in, E. You’re stronger than some crazy cells in your body. You’re gonna fight this, and I’ll be there to help you through it."

Grantaire picks up the electric razor that was carelessly dropped in the sink - and raises it to his own head. Enjolras spins around and grabs his wrists -“No, what are you-” “Calm down, my dear Apollo” it’s almost a joke, almost, “we’re gonna do this together, you and I. And you are going to fight this battle, and then both our hair will grow back. And everything is going to be fine.” The pull on his wrists fall away. Graintaire turns on the device, and one by one dark locks fall from his head - it’s really messy, he can’t see the back of his head well, so Enjolras finally wakes from his paralysis to take over and shave off the last strands of hair. 

"Wow" Grantaire breathes at the reflection in the mirror, running a hand over the slightly stubble but mostly hairless skin of his head. "weird." he turns, lifts the lazor, and smiles. "Now you." 

Enjolras breathes deeply and sits back down on the bathtub ridge, Grantaire crouching behind him. He can see and feel Enjolras shaking when he lays a hand on the side of his hands to steady him, but it stops when he starts shaving (he can’t see how Enjolras closes his eyes, he can feel however him leaning into the touch of his warm hand). 

When finally all hair is gone - well, scattered on the bathroom floor - they stare at themselves in the mirror, tracing the shape of their heads never really observed before, noticing the differences in facial structure - how different Grantaire’s big, broad nose looks from Enjolras’s thin, straight line of a nose as just one example. Finally, they smile at each other, first at their reflections, then at each other, and Enjolras dares to start hoping again. Even though he doesn’t know how well he is going to take chemo therapy, and how all this is going to end, if he’s even going to survive (he is), he now knows at least Grantaire will be there, reminding him of his own strength. (What he doesn’t know either is how in two year’s time, Grantaire will have his wonderful locks back, and Enjolras head will be a starlight-like blaze of white hair instead of blond, forever reminding him of how he battled and won this monster “cancer”.)

_____

That night, there’s a meeting in the Musain. They’re more frequent now, Enjolras has a feverish need to do something and he’s so very aware that he might not have forever to change the world. 

They enter the room together, it wouldn’t have made sense for either of them to go do anything else before then and they’d gotten caught up talking, so they’re a bit late. Enjolras doesn’t quite know how that happened, but it did. 

Their friends react with various, badly masked levels of shock at the stark reminder of what is happening to them and in any other situation that would have Enjolras as the cause for Grantaire cutting off his hair, Eponine would very much have liked to punch him in the face for being the reason Grantaire lost the wonderful, soft, dark mop on his head. It’s one of his best features, the one thing about him you can compliment and have him believe you. And Enjolras is the reason her friend now sits there looking like a very awkward egg. She doesn’t adore Enjolras the way everyone else does, but right there, in this very moment, she wants, needs to find something, someone to use her switchblade on in his behalf. This is not a situation in which she can, though. There is nobody she can send a shady aquantaince of hers after, nobody to be beaten up or hunted down or blackmailed into stopping what is happening to her friends.

There is no way to deny what is happening to their leader and how it is obviously going to affect them all in some way, but next to her, Bahorel mirrors her unrest and around them, everyone seems shellshocked at the fact that this is real, this is happening, Enjolras is not fine. 

Everyone, except Combeferre, who had been the first to know, the one who’d probably had that reaction before them all, when Enjolras’ tests came back positive and he as a med student knew better than anyone what was going on because he is and always has been one of two people Enjolras trusts completely. Combeferre, whose very existence seems to be tied incredibly closely to Enjolras, is smiling. 

Usually, it’s Jehan who notices things about people, but with Enjolras, it’s always Combeferre, forever Combeferre and never not him. There is no way he can not know everything important about Enjolras, can not read him like the simplest of picturebooks. 

There are more ways than one, he supposes, that friendships can be made. 

It’s Courfeyrac who asks, as Enjolras is still in conversation with Grantaire and Feuilly who joined them at some point, if he cared to share what was nice enough to make him smile like that. 

"These two," he says and nods towards Enjolras and Grantaire, "just defeated their mountain troll."

Now, Courfeyrac has seen Harry Potter, he read the books, once, at some point, when he got talked into it, but he has nothing on Combeferre, who had, tiny before puberty hit him, with glasses and a torch under his blanket, devoured the books and learned more about friendship from them than from real life because this had been the time before he’d met Courfeyrac and Enjolras. Thus, he doesn’t quite get what his friend is saying.

It is Jehan, who’s sitting next to Courfeyrac and with whom Combeferre shares a bond mostly based on the fact that they can hold conversations that are made up from 75% book quotes and understand each other’s excitement about certain writers, who first starts smiling in realisation and then elaborates.

"There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them,” he quotes, his face having lit up. “Harry Potter, the first one, the thing with the troll in the loo?”

All Courfeyrac can do is look at Enjolras and Grantaire consideringly and nod.


End file.
